Michael Shermer on The fine-tuning argument
Shermer treats fine-tuning as an open scientific question, not evidence for God, and emphasises the role of survivorship bias in our perception of cosmic improbability.
Michael Shermer acknowledges the apparent fine-tuning of the universe as a genuine scientific puzzle while rejecting the design inference as unwarranted. His primary response draws on survivorship bias: we can only observe a universe compatible with our existence, so the fact that we find ourselves in such a universe is not as surprising as it initially seems. It is like being amazed that the puddle fits its hole perfectly — the puddle conforms to the hole, not the other way around.
Shermer also points out that the fine-tuning argument assumes we know the range of possible values the physical constants could take — but we do not. Without knowing the probability distribution, we cannot calculate the improbability of our universe, and without that calculation, the argument from improbability collapses. The constants might be necessary rather than contingent; the range of life-permitting values might be larger than assumed; or there might be many universes with different values. Each alternative is at least as plausible as the design hypothesis.
His broader sceptical framework is relevant here: extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and the claim that a cosmic intelligence fine-tuned the physical constants is about as extraordinary as a claim can get. The evidence — the bare fact that the constants have the values they do — is not extraordinary at all. It is simply the way things are.
“We're like a puddle marvelling at how perfectly the hole was designed to fit us. It's a natural illusion, not evidence of design.”